


Old habits back

by Aliawrites



Category: Forever (TV)
Genre: Episode Tag, Father-Son Relationship, Gen, Unknown Caller
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-22
Updated: 2014-12-22
Packaged: 2018-03-02 19:26:16
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,666
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2823341
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aliawrites/pseuds/Aliawrites
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It had been the better part of 60 years since he'd last done this, but grown man or not, Abraham was still his son.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Old habits back

It had been the better part of 60 years since he'd last done this, but the events of the evening had left Henry rattled and unable to sleep. Giving up all pretense, he got up, pulled on a dressing gown and made his way silently down the hall and to Abe's bedroom door.

He stood for a moment outside the door straining to hear Abe's breathing, not quite daring to open the door, but it was impossible, this was New York, and even in the dead of night and with all of their windows closed, there was still enough background city noise to drown out the quiet sounds of breathing inside.

A returning wave of the fear he'd felt earlier in the evening when he'd turned around in his lab to see the face of the man he was certain had murdered his son washed over him again, stealing his breath and leaving him needing so see Abe safe and alive. Now.

Abraham was a grown man and though he may appear nearly twice Henry's age, no matter how old he got, his father's eyes would always be able to see the infant and the boy he'd raised within the man. So it was now as Henry ever so slowly opened the door to see Abe asleep, on his side, his back to the door.

Henry caught his breath again at the sight. Abe, of course, would be mortified, Henry was sure, to find his father checking in on him while he slept, but after several terrifying, heartwrenching moments this evening when he's feared Abe was lost to him, he needed this reassurance and leaned against the doorframe, gripping the door and allowing himself the luxury of watching his son sleep.

"Well don't just stand there," Abe said, his voice still heavy with sleep, startling Henry. "Come in," Abe instructed, turning around and sitting up in his bed. "You alright?"

"I'm sorry," Henry offered guiltily. "I didn't mean to wake you. I'm sorry," he babbled, starting to back out of the room.

"Henry wait," Abe called though, stopping him. "It's alright, come here," he encouraged, shifting over to the other side of his bed and patting the side nearest Henry invitingly. "Sit. Please."

"No, no, no. I'm sorry, you need your sleep... I should go..." Henry protested.

"Dad," Abe's sleepy voice stopped Henry in his tracks. "Come on, sit. Talk to me."

Seeing Abe sitting there stuffing a pillow behind his back to lean back on with one hand while rubbing sleep out of his eyes with the other, Henry was forcibly reminded of Abe the child, in another bed, far from here, doing the same thing. Choking back the emotion of nearly losing that boy - this man today, Henry made his way over to the bed and sat down, leaning against the headboard next to his son.

"What were you doing there?" Abe asked quietly, kindly. 

"I..." Henry faultered, afraid of annoying Abe by being overly emotional, or worse, making him feel like he was treating him like a child. 

"Something to do with what happened here tonight?" Abe asked gently. "You know you did what you had to do right?"

"I thought you were gone," Henry admitted, his voice just loud enough for his son to hear. "For what seemed an eternity, I believed... I feared he'd killed you."

"Oh," Abe said, realisation hitting him how his father would have felt in that moment, he reached over, laying his hand on Henry's forearm. "Oh, Henry, I'm sorry. He didn't. I'm fine. I'm here."

"I couldn't sleep, I'm sorry, I just had to see you were..."

"It's OK," Abe assured him. This time he could allow - and understand how Henry had been reacting as a father would, regardless of his son's age. "You were watching me sleep?"

"I'm sorry."

"It's OK," Abe repeated. "It's been a long time. When was the last time you did that?" he asked, not expecting him to remember a specific date in the past, but hoping to distract Henry anyway.

It worked as Henry chuckled quietly. "I remember exactly," he said, looking sideways at Abe. "You were 12. You and your friend had snuck away to try to get the autographs of some baseball players I believe...?"

"What? You nearly murdered me yourself that night!" Abe blurted, remembering exactly the evening in question. He had gotten permission to spend the day and have dinner at his friend's place, and his friend had gotten permission to do the same, only at the Morgans'. Their plan then was to make their way to the stadium to get some autographs. It was a perfect plan too, and would have worked except that Lyle's grandfather had fallen ill and his parents had called Henry and Abigail to arrange to pick him up.

On realising that both boys had lied and had been 'missing' for about 4 hours by then, their parents had panicked, called the police and started calling every friend they knew of to find where they'd gone. When the boys had walked into their respective homes at around 8PM, lies on their lips about being dropped off by the other's father, all four parents had been furious and the police had left the boys to their fates.

"What, were you making sure I couldn't try to sneak out again? Or were you comtemplating waking me up for further punishments...?" Abe caught himself suddenly, realising how ill-timed his first response had been given what Henry had feared had happened earlier this evening.

"Oh, oh, oh!" he gasped, gripping his father's arm and turning to face him fully. "Oh, Henry, I didn't mean... Oh, damn. That was a stupid thing to say."

"It's OK," Henry allowed, taking in, and releasing a deep breath. "It's a figure of speech. I know what you meant." With a Herculean effort, he pushed past the fear, and placing his hand over his son's still gripping his arm, he plastered on a small smile and looked down into Abe's worried eyes and focussing on why he'd been watching Abe sleep then an now, he spoke to what Abe had meant, ignoring the poor choice of wording "When you were 12 you may have wished an easy-out, but you did wrong, scared your poor mother out of her wits - and you were suitably disciplined," he said with a pointed look.

Ignoring Abe's exasperated, slightly abashed grunt as he broke his father's eye contact and leaned his head back against the headboard, Henry sighed and went on. "You'd scared me as well. We didn't know where you'd been for nearly 8 hours. I'd imagined the worst all of the last 4 of those hours once we'd realised you weren't where you'd said you'd be.

"When you turned up, all smiles, without a care..." Henry shifted slighly, stilll holding tight to Abe's hand. "I was... cross. Angry with you..." Abe hummed in agreement with Henry's assessment.

"It came from being afraid for you Abraham. Fearing we'd lost..." Henry broke off, uncomfortably remembering a similar feeling burning in his heart again today. "So later, after you were asleep... and your mother was asleep... I'd lain awake, thinking about all the things that could have happened. I couldn't sleep so I got up and went to your room to reassure myself that you were still there. That you were safe...

"I stood in your door half the night, then sat on the edge of your bed the other half after you had a nightmare."

"I'm sorry," Abe said, silently leaning sideways to rest his head on Henry's shoulder without thinking. It was something he would never normally do anymore, but there were things allowed in the dead of midnight, after the kind of day, and indeed week his little family of two had had that didn't need to answer to 'normal'.

"I don't remember a nightmare, but I do remember that night. I'm sorry. It didn't even occur to us at the time how you all would feel if we'd been found out and you didn't know where we were. I can't believe we did something so stupid now."

"You were children, Abe," Henry reassured. "It's not in the nature of children to think of the worst potential outcomes to situations - nor should it be.

"Anyway, it was only about a month before we had to leave suddenly and we ended up in Amsterdam for a while, and one thing after another and I just never had occasion to intrude on your sleep again until now." With a sigh, Henry squeezed Abe's hand and released it, starting to sit up, ready to leave Abe to his sleep once again but his son caught his hand and held him still. 

"Tell me the story," Abe asked, knowing that even though he hadn't made that request since right around the same time Henry'd last snuck in to his room to watch him sleep, his father would know what he meant. He was tired, and really too old to be awake at this time of night, but one thing he knew for sure, it was that just like that night in 1957, his father needed the reassurance of his son's presence. And since he was an excellent son... or at least he'd grown into being an excellent son, he would be there for his father.

Henry smiled and settled back against the headboard, knowing exactly what Abe was doing, and appreciating it beyond description. He cleared his throat and began the oft repeated story that had not dimmed in his memory in spite of the many years it had been since he'd last recited it.

"I'd been treating wounded for about 40 hours straight," he began. "To be honest, when I first heard your cries, I feared I was hallucinating from lack of sleep. I walked around some debris and saw the most beautiful human being I'd ever seen... and she was holding you in her arms..."

**Author's Note:**

> To be honest, this took a bit of detour from what I started it as which was a fluffly sort of thing where Henry needed to reassure himself and was peering in on Abe sleeping in the middle of the night to make sure he was still ok.


End file.
